HOW TO GET PAST WRITERS BLOCK
by FFWriter's Club
Summary: Some helpful hints to get you past writers block.


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**How to get past writers block**

First, you have a good story, so don't give up. Second, you need to try not to stress about the story or the idea of writers block. The more you stress about it the worse your writers block will be. Third, take a short break from your story maybe a week or two.

Now, you are ready to get past your writers block. Start by going back and reading your own story. Make notes on things that need to continue in your story. Get a beta for your work; ask them to make suggestions, bounce ideas off each other. It really helps to talk about it. This should be someone who loves your story and is good at finding and fixing mistakes. And someone who you trust not to share your secretes, but who will be completely honest with you (if it's boring or needs emotion or whatever, but you need to be willing to hear it from them.)

Think about your characters that you have, their personality and what you want to have happen to each person, build each one. Then connect them. Usually you already have the connections you just have to build on it.

What I do is take each person and write the name at the top of a piece of paper and then start writing down things I want to happen to that person. This doesn't need to be in order, it's just a list of ideas for that person and some of them, you may not use, or even switch them to another character. When you think about a person rather than the whole story you get away from the OMG what do I write now.

Define the good guy or protagonist he/she is your hero. What is going to happen to that person? Give yourself an overall story. And write it down. I equate this to telling a little kid your story so every detail doesn't matter right now, but you need to have the beginning, middle, and end. With every story ever written there is a pattern. Exposition – rising action- climax- falling action- Resolution.

**Exposition** – How did the story start? What happened to all the characters to get them to this point in the story, so introducing the story line and each character and how they fit into your story.

**Rising Action** – something happens to make life difficult for all or some of the characters. Show how this event affects each character playing it out on the page. This also can be the domino effect, where one bad thing leads to another and multiple things go wrong or happen to lead to the height of the story.

**Climax**- This is the height of the story. The worst or best it gets. The turning point in the story. The action gets more intense or at its highest and the drama gets to its breaking point.

**Falling in action**- The hero rides to the rescue, or saves the day. Things happen that head in the direction of the Resolution of your story, a series of events that eventually leads you to your final outcome that you desire.

**Resolution** – the event that occurs finally to end the story the way you want it to end.

If you haven't already… plan out your outline of the chapters. It can always change if you want so it's not set in stone. And again, my biggest tip is to read your story and jot down stuff that's happening to each person on a sheet of paper. Then build from there.

If you don't have Skype, you should get it and connect to your beta and other writers you talk to so you can bounce ideas around. It's easy and FREE you just have to download it and pick a user name. Easy as pie. You don't have to have the camera and mic to use it. I mainly use the instant message part b/c I can multi-task. I split my screen and put Skype in compact view. Shrinking it to as skinny as it will go and then on the rest of my screen I open up my story or the internet. I can read, write, Skype, or surf all at the same time. You can use PM's also, but Skype is so much quicker and easier.

Once you find someone who you can talk to about your story and you trust that they won't spill your storyline. Spend a few days talking back and forth about things you want to happen and things you might like. Listen to their suggestions and with Skype you can copy and paste your whole conversation into a document and save it so you don't forget some of the great ideas you thought of while chatting back and forth.

Trust me; this will spark new and fantastic ideas. And don't be afraid to use only part of it or change it up because a new idea just popped into your brain and you want to do it that way instead. Even if your beta has great ideas, it may spark something that you hadn't even thought of before and send you down this really cool storyline.

Fine-tune your whole story now that you have all these cool ideas bouncing like the energizer bunny in your head. Write your outline – this doesn't have to be fancy mine are just idea after idea in chronological order of events.

Example: For my story **The Wild Wild West**, this is how I would do it. This is like an overview of the beginning of chapter 1.

Rose wants to surprise Dimitri

Take him to the Rodeo

Rose and Lissa plan it out

All the gang is going with

Rose tells Dimitri he needs to have a certain day off

She tells him it's a surprise

He tries to seduce the information out of her

It turns into fun

Hot sexy m scene

Ect….

I'm sure you get the point. I just do this for each chapter focusing on an event for each chapter. Yours can be more detail if you want, I do this at first then when I get to that chapter, I add the details expanding my outline as I go, before I write the chapter. Now with my expanded, detailed outline I start writing making sure I fit in all the ideas.

In addition, each chapter is like a mini story with Exposition – rising action- climax- falling action- Resolution. However, there may not be a resolution for a while if the event carries over into the next chapter.

Do these things for as many chapters as you can. You may have an idea for a chapter, but not quite sure where it's going, so put down your ideas that you do have and it may come to you later. If it doesn't, then talk to your beta about it.

Sometimes, I look at my story another way when I get stuck. I work my story forwards and backwards or even from the climax to the beginning or from the ending to the climax.

Let's say you know what the ending of your story is. And you know what the peak of the story will be. You work back and forth filling in the middle with events that need to occur to make your story come out right.

**Take the ever-popular story line everyone seems to try to reinvent. **

_Dimitri leaves Rose for Tasha and Rose is pregnant _

_Usually in these stories, Rose and Dimitri find their way back to each other after some really major crap has happened. So we now know the beginning, middle and end. _

_Beginning- Rose gets pregnant and Dimitri leaves her for Tasha_

_Rising action- Rose has to go thru pregnancy alone and or has to deal with Dimitri showing back up when she's about to pop. _

_Climax – Dimitri starts to figure out things and he finds out he is daddy. Big decisions are placed in front of all the characters. _

_Falling action- Because of his poor choices he has to prove his love to get back his Soul mate so he takes these steps so in the end she will choose him._

_Resolution – She battles with herself but finally chooses him and they live happily ever after. _

OK… OK… I know that not every one of those stories goes just that way, but you get my point.

Now to make that ever-popular story unique, you have to put your own spin on the world of Rose and Dimitri.

So you have to come up with your own twists. So I ask myself this-

**What has to happen to my characters to bring them to each point?**

Answer that and you will have your twists.

**AND THE BEST PART OF ALL ….NO MORE WRITERS BLOCK! **


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